Dealing With Blackouts... In My Old Goan House

IN our old house which now exists only in my memories, we had a corner in a back room dedicated to emergency lighting. Totally unlike the battery and the inverter boxed neatly in a nook, it consisted of a tin of kerosene, a tin pump, a tin funnel and an assortment of lamps.

- Pantaleao Fernandes

It was my sacred duty to check the supply of kerosene in the tin and replenish the valuable commodity which was always in short supply at the neighbouring posaro (local provision store). After the long queue diminished after what seemed an eternity, I would produce my five litre can, secure it to the bracket of my father’s BSA cycle and pedal home via the village payvats (footpaths).

The next task was to use the tin pump and work the piston up and down, while collecting the flow of kerosene into a bottle through a tin funnel. Later, the funnel changed places and was placed into the tank of the petromas. Next was the turn of the hurricane lamp, then the Aladdin lamp, the tiny chimney lamp and finally the petrolacho divo – a bottle or a tin with a wick pulled through a hole in the metallic cap.